Saturday, March 28, 2009

The Wall Street Journal's Weekend Journal section for March 28-29 had this large headline and article intro for an article by Yochi J. Dreazen datelined Fort Carson, Colorado:

A General's Personal Battle ... The military is facing a sharp spike in suicides, and Maj. Gen. Mark Graham is leading the fight to reduce them. His mission is close to the heart: His own son, a young ROTC cadet, killed himself six years ago.

Although the article is rather long, I urge you to read it after you finish reading this blog post.

In my opinion here are the most important paragraphs in the whole article:

Gen. Graham is turning Fort Carson into a testing ground for new ideas about suicide prevention. The most promising initiative involves "mobile behavioral health teams," groupings of more than a dozen mental-health professionals who work with individual brigades before, during and after their time in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Currently, troops are screened by mental-health professionals only on their return to the U.S. and have limited access to help while overseas. The idea originated with the Behavioral Health department at Fort Carson's hospital. Last fall, officials from the department met with Gen. Graham to propose creating one team as a trial, and he immediately gave his approval. The first team was established in November.

"The thinking is that the teams will really get to know each of these soldiers so they can identify changes in their behavior and spot the ones who need more help," says Lt. Col. Nicholas Piantanida, a practicing doctor who runs Fort Carson's clinical services. If the teams are successful, Col. Piantanida hopes to see the system replicated across the Army.

When I told my younger daughter Yael about this part of the article, she immediately went to our book shelves and brought back Joseph Conrad's novel HEART OF DARKNESS. "The book opened right to the page I wanted," she said, then asked me to read aloud a long paragraph, of which I'll only include here the most relevant parts:

"The old doctor felt my pulse.. . 'Good! Good for there,' he mumbled, and then with a certain eagerness asked me whether I would let him measure my head. Rather surprised, I said Yes, when he produced a thing like calipers... 'I always ask leave, in the interests of science, to measure the crania of those going out there,' he said. 'And when they come back too?' I asked. 'Oh, I never see them,' he remarked, 'and, moreover, the changes take place inside, you know.'...

Any of you following the tv series GREY'S ANATOMY undiagnosed-PTSD saga of Dr. Owen Hunt, formerly a deployed army major who was the sole survivor of an attacked convoy, know that in the episode on March 26, after in his sleep almost choking to death his girlfriend, he has finally accepted another doctor's suggestion that a study of Dr. Hunt's brain be performed. As the second doctor told him, there are changes in the brain that can actually be seen.

Thus the concept of army mental health professionals being in a position to gauge changes -- changes that Conrad in his novel published in 1899 was already aware of -- seems to be a giant step forward. Because if you only evaluate a man or woman after the fact, how do you know if anything has changed in that person's brain or mind?

Friday, March 27, 2009

THE YANKEE AT THE SEDER is a new children's picture book that I reviewed for OperationSupportJewsintheMilitary.com. The book is written by Elka Weber and illustrated by Adam Gustavson.

What makes this book particularly interesting is that it is based on a true story of a Union soldier sharing the seder with a Confederate family right after General Lee surrendered to General Grant on April 9, 1965.

At the seder that begins the week-long holiday of Pesach (Passover) we recount the story of the Israelites escaping slavery in Egypt. Since the Civil War was fought in part over the issue of slavery, how amazing it must have been for this Union soldier to celebrate Pesach with a Confederate family!

In the book the 10-year-old son says:

"Mother," I whispered. "Mother, how could you let a Yankee into our house?"

"Jacob, every year we begin the seder the same way. We say, 'All who are hungry, let them come and eat; all who are in need, let them join us for the Passover meal.' A hungry man needing a seder has come to our home. Would you send him away for wearing a blue coat?"

I hope those of you reading this blog post will think of our military personnel in harm's way and contribute to one or more military-support organizations. If you don't have a favorite one of your own, see some organizations at MrsLieutenant.com.

At the end of THE YANKEE AT THE SEDER there's a section "The Real Story." According to Weber: "During the war, six thousand to nine thousand Jews fought for the North and about two thousand Jews fought for the South. Nearly one-third of all adult Jewish men in America fought in the Civil War."

P.S. If you want to know more about the holiday of Pesach (this year the first seder is the evening of April 8th), read this Pesach chapter from the Jewish holiday book SEASONS FOR CELEBRATION that I co-wrote with Rabbi Karen L. Fox.___

Thursday, March 26, 2009

The new BROTHERS AT WAR documentary is an amazing up-close-and-personal look at Americans fighting in Iraq. Jake Rademacher follows his brothers to Iraq to film what it's like to be in the thick of an insurgency.

After screening the documentary, I wrote a review of it on my PZ the Do-Gooder blog knowing that a few days later Nancy Brown and I would be doing a BlogTalkRadio YourMilitaryLife.com show about the documentary.

Yesterday we interviewed David Scantling, one of two exec producers on the documentary. (Gary Sinise is the other exec producer.) I told Scantling that what I really liked about the documentary is that it had a narrative throughline -- there was a beginning, middle and end of the story rather than the frequent all-over-the-map of most documentaries.

What struck me most about our interview is that Scantling came on board after the raw footage had been shot by director Jake Rademacher because Scantling had been working for the U.S. government in Iraq. When he and his wife got to see some early footage, his wife asked him, "Is this what it's really like in Iraq?"

It was at that moment that Scantling realized the importance of having this film get as wide an audience as possible to bring home to the American people what it is like in Iraq.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

CinCHouse.com began in 1999 as a way for military spouse Meredith Leyva to share the concerns of a military spouse with other military spouses. This "little" website that she started has now grown to the largest online community of military wives -- as well as women in uniform.

Nancy Brown and I interviewed Meredith Leyva today on our BlogTalkRadio show YourMilitaryLife.com. What I found most interesting as someone who was a Mrs. Lieutenant from 1970 to 1972 is how, according to Meredith, military wives today do not identify themselves as military spouses. Instead they identify themselves by what they do -- and their husbands are in the military.

Meredith says that senior military personnel -- who started in the military when the wife of an army lieutenant was still very much a Mrs. Lieutenant -- often find this "sea change" hard to adjust to.

Besides being the founder of CinCHouse.com, Meredith is also the author of the military spouse guidebook MARRIED TO THE MILITARY, which will soon be coming out in a revised edition.

Listen to Meredith now talking about the concerns of today's military spouses.___

Monday, March 23, 2009

I have Lindsey Brothers to thank for submitting me for the U.S. Army Freedom Team Salute Certificate of Appreciation. The certificate reads:

For outstanding contributions to the United States Army. The Army greatly appreciates your support of Soldiers fighting the Global War on Terrorism and is proud to recognize your personal sacrifices in preserving the freedom and security of our Nation.

And the certificate is signed by George W. Casey, Jr., General, United States Army, Chief of Staff and Pete Geren, Secretary of the Army.

This is the second army certificate I’ve received in my life. The first certificate was at the graduation luncheon for the wives of AOB 21 in July of 1970.

This first certificate reads "U.S. Army Armor School" at the top. Under the words "United Students Wives" are the words "check book, cook book, baby care." Then comes the formal "To all who shall see these presents greetings."

Be it known that Phyllis Miller having successfully completed and survived the required course in the feeding, care, and coddling of her husband inThe U.S. Army Armor SchoolIn testimony Whereof, and by authority vested in us, we do declare her aGRADUMATEGiven at Fort Knox, Kentucky, this 1st day of July 1970

And it was signed by a brigadier general, a major general, and a lieutenant colonel.

And this first certificate, as silly as it may sound, actually led to this second certificate in March of 2009. How?

When my novel MRS. LIEUTENANT (www.MrsLieutenant.com) -- based on my own experiences as a new Mrs. Lieutenant in the spring of 1970 -- was published last April, I included information on the book’s website about organizations that support U.S. military personnel and their families. At the same time I started the blog www.MrsLieutenant.blogspot.com.

Then I started doing joint projects with Nancy Brown of www.YourMilitary.com, which led in November to Nancy asking me to be her co-host on the new BlogTalkRadio show www.YourMiltiaryLife.com. And in January I started the website project www.OperationSupportJewsintheMilitary.com.

The book website, the blog, the BlogTalkRadio show and the website project all give me the opportunity of showcasing people and organizations that support our military personnel and their families. And this is how that first silly certificate led to this second much-appreciated certificate.

And those of you who read this blog post, look around to see how you can help support our military personnel and their families. I can’t promise you’ll get a certificate, but you never know.____

Sunday, March 22, 2009

"U.S. Courts Former Warlords in Its Bid for Afghan Stability" was a March 20th front-page Wall Street Journal article by Matthew Rosenberg. I read this story with interest and then later reflected on it when I watched the documentary BROTHERS AT WAR directed by Jake Rademacher.

I've read that the Iraqis are not great fighters (clearly demonstrated in BROTHERS AT WAR) and that the Afghans are great fighters (they've been fighting for centuries). And reading this Wall Street Journal article in conjunction with seeing the documentary BROTHERS AT WAR makes it quite clear how different the two countries are. And this, of course, means that different military/political strategies are required for different cultures and situations.

Read the article now about the Afghan warlords and form your own opinions.___

Thursday, March 19, 2009

On Facebook I got a message from Goli Motar about a project to raise funds to have a home built through Homes for Our Troops for badly wounded SGT David Battle. Read Goli's Facebook message and then click on the link provided below to donate funds.

Subject: Homes for Our Troops

Dear friends and family,

In March, our team will be heading to White Sands, New Mexico, to participate in the Bataan Memorial Death March, a 26.2 mile march through the high desert terrain of the White Sands Missile Range.

Our goal is to raise awareness of the difficulties facing severely wounded service men and women upon their return to the United States from combat.

SGT David Battle, a resident of Baltimore, Maryland, was severely wounded while serving in Iraq during combat operations on December 18, 2007.

Homes for Our Troops, a charitable organization that provides specially adapted homes for wounded soldiers, is building SGT David Battle a home in Baltimore, Maryland. All donations we raise during the march will go to building this home for SGT Battle and his family.

Our team currently consists of six members -- five members of the military and one civilian:

GreatAmericans.com's founder Matt Daniels did not have an easy time growing up on welfare in a dangerous neighborhood in New York City. He credits his rising above his circumstances to earn a law degree and a Ph.D. to the role models he had as a child.

And, as he explained to Nancy Brown and me on our BlogTalkRadio show www.YourMilitaryLife.com, that's why he started GreatAmericans.com -- to provide role models of men and women in uniform -- military, police, fire -- to encourage America's children.

GreatAmericans.com offers the opportunity for anyone to upload to the site a video of someone you wish to honor as a role model. You need only go to www.GreatAmericans.com and the upload button is in the top right-hand corner.

Listen to our interview of Matt Daniels now to be inspired to participate in this amazing project. And then go to GreatAmericans.com and participate.___

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Marine recruits graduate in a ceremony at one of two Marine boot camps -- San Diego or Parris Island (women only graduate from Parris Island). In 2005 when John Weant's son graduated from Marine boot camp, John realized how important it is for parents to experience their child's graduation after 13 weeks of strenuous training.

And thus, with some other dedicated people, John co-founded www.usmcgrad.org, an organization that is donor-funded to help parents who otherwise couldn't afford to attend their child's Marine boot camp graduation to do so.

Nancy Brown and I interviewed John on our BlogTalkRadio show YourMilitaryLife.com. Listen to John explain his organization's very worthwhile mission to help parents celebrate their child's Marine boot camp graduation. Then consider donating to www.usmcgrad.org.___

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Yesterday I got an email from someone who has adopted a soldier through this organization, and I decided to give more exposure to this organization. Here's the story about this organization:

Sergeant Brian Horn from LaPlata, Maryland, an Army Infantry Soldier with the 173rd Airborne Brigade was in the Kirkuk area of Iraq when he started the idea of Any Soldier® to help care for his soldiers. He agreed to distribute packages that came to him with "Attn: Any Soldier®" in his address to soldiers who didn't get mail.Brian later completed a tour in Afghanistan and is now home, and his sister, SPC Svetlana Horn, recently completed a tour in Iraq, but AnySoldier.com continues larger than ever.

Any Soldier Inc. started in August 2003 as a simple family effort to help the soldiers in one Army unit; thus, our name. Due to overwhelming requests, on 1 January 2004 the Any Soldier® effort was expanded to include any member of the Armed Forces in harm's way.

The most critical minutes in a wounded soldier's care in combat is the first 10, and quick reaction time can make all the difference between life and death. The vital connection between the laboratory injury simulation experience and a real life combat injury encounter has proven to be a pivotal element in keeping our warfighters alive on the battlefield.

Military Moulage Combat Injury Simulation™ provides high value moulage training workshops for military and civilian casualty simulation personnel. By utilizing exclusive Hollywood special makeup effects with state of the art materials and methods, the student acquires an impressive hands-on knowledge base in techniques and resources to produce real-to-the-eye injury replicas.

Suzanne spoke about the very high percentage of medics who freeze on their first time out on a battlefield and how training with simulated battlefield wounds can help this situation.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Guest blogger Michele Rosenthal generously shares her own PTSD story here in order to help others. She blogs and runs an ongoing, free healing PTSD workshop. Contact her via email at parasitesof.themind@yahoo.com. She is scheduled to be the guest on YourMilitaryLife.com on June 17th.

A “classic” PTSD story

I admit it, I’m a civilian, but don’t let that fool you. My experience of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) proves that, while our traumas are all individual, the PTSD experience is incredibly universal. It began this way:

When I was 13 I survived a rare, life-threatening allergy to a medication. Basically, I turned into a burn patient overnight, head to toe. It was 1981. Only one year prior in 1980 PTSD was finally recognized as a legitimate psychological condition. This helped raise awareness and resources for vets everywhere; it did little to tip people off that civilians can experience PTSD, too.

When I was finally released from the hospital I went home and got on with the business of living. I knew I had been changed, that something about me had fundamentally altered. But I didn’t know how or why or when to communicate this to anyone. I could barely understand it myself. I didn’t have the vocabulary to explain it and, truthfully, I didn’t want to.

Silence, I thought, was better for us all. So I hid the evidence of my trauma metamorphosis. I plunged back into life and didn’t tell anyone about the flashbacks that frequently occurred. I didn’t breathe a word about the nightmares or the insomnia that set in the minute I hit the sack. I didn’t want people to think I was a freak, so I didn’t mention how often I felt cloaked in a fog, as if the real world was very far away and unreal. As if I existed outside of the moment and hovered over it observing everything from afar.

No, I thought it was better not to speak about the fact that I no longer had a grip on whom I was, had been or should be, or that my mind uncontrollably drifted back to fragments of the past. I didn’t want anyone to think I couldn’t cope. I didn’t want anyone to think I was weak or unheroic.

In silence I lived in constant fear, cutoff from the present moment, my family and friends. I sank into a depressed isolation. I had trouble focusing, especially during interactions with others. I became easily enraged and antagonistic. Within a few years I was extremely anorectic, too, as I strove to control my environment so that I felt safe. I took all the survival coping mechanisms I’d ever learned or could devise and put them in place to protect me.

My family, of course, wasn’t fooled by my attempts to go it alone. They reached out and forced me to seek counseling. Two problems with this: 1) you can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped; 2) the counselors didn’t know what to do with me.

No one recognized that I struggled with classic symptoms of PTSD. Twenty-five years went by while I descended into such a horrible, chronic and extreme PTSD stupor that my body, not just my mind, was debilitated. I developed advanced fibromyalgia, osteoporosis, inanition and organ malfunction. My hair fell out. I was nearly wild with sleep-deprivation. This is what happens when PTSD goes undiagnosed. It takes over a life and renders it almost unlivable.

Hope at the end of the tunnel

But this doesn’t have to be the way PTSD progresses. It’s now 2009. In the past 28 years what’s known about PTSD and how to heal it has progressed immensely.

Three years ago I was finally diagnosed. The turning point in my healing came when I finally began to talk about what I was experiencing and to reach out for help.

Most importantly, it began when I decided I wanted to be healed. When I finally admitted how distorted my life had become I made a promise to myself: I was not going to live the rest of my life in this warped PTSD agony.

I went on a healing rampage and consecutively entered psychotherapy, cognitive behavior therapy and information processing therapy. I talked. I cried. I learned to recognize triggers and modify my behavior. I tried Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy, Emotional Freedom Technique, Tappas Accupressure Technique and Thought Field Therapy.

For some people who experience PTSD one therapy – or a combination of these therapies – is enough. For me, however, while each of these components made me a little stronger and closer to health by alleviating the severity of my symptoms, they did not eradicate or free me from them.

Finally, I struck out on my own path. I decided in order to reconnect with myself in the present it was necessary to stop defining myself in terms of the past. Just as a whole identity is not “soldier” or “veteran” my whole identity was not “survivor.” It was necessary to develop a new perspective; I set out to deliberately construct a post-trauma identity.

Rediscovering who we are

In order to heal PTSD we need to rediscover who we are outside of our traumatic experience. Getting involved with rebuilding our lives – and doing so in ways that make us feel purpose and joy – heals the psyche from the inside out. More than that, it returns to us the power that trauma and PTSD so easily steal away. We don’t have to control our immediate environments to be healthy and safe. What we need is to enlarge our positive participation in the world; the stronger we make that effort the more healing we achieve.

Today, I’m into my second year of being 100% PTSD-free. I advocate for PTSD awareness, education, treatment and healing. Part of this effort is writing a healing PTSD blog, Parasites of the Mind. Through the blog I’ve had contact with several vets and we’ve been surprised by the many parallels in our PTSD experiences.

Recently I corresponded with a Gulf War vet. I asked his opinion of the most important aspects of diagnosis and healing combat PTSD. His prescription for relief sounded a lot like mine: 1) accept you are not the person you were before; 2) recognize you need help; 3) reach out for support (in the VA, online and in-person groups, plus find a good therapist); 4) be willing to move forward. [On the practical side, he also advised the collection of 1 – 3 copies of medical records before discharge, and later, joining the Disabled American Veterans, which appoints a National Service Officer to handle each case.]

There’s a terrific PTSD site run by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs: National Center for PTSD that has much useful and empowering information and resources. If you, your comrades or your military loved one exhibits any PTSD symptoms, don’t wait 25 years before getting diagnosed. Begin today to reclaim yourself, your world and your future. Healing is heroic.___

Saturday, March 7, 2009

March 7, 1965: As a high school student in Elgin, Illinois, I was oblivious to the fact that this day would come to be known as "Bloody Sunday." The March 7, 2009, Wall Street Journal reports about this day in 1965:

(H)undreds of peaceful protesters left Selma [Alabama], heading for Montgomery. As they walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, high above the Alabama River, they ran into state troopers and local police wielding tear gas and billy clubs.

Those of you, though, who have followed this blog that started with the publication of my novel MRS. LIEUTENANT know that one of the themes of the novel is how four women of different races and religions had to learn to get together as new officer's wives in the spring of 1970 during the Vietnam War. And that 1970 was only six years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Thus I thought it appropriate to mention this anniversary of the 1965 date in my blog.

The article itself -- "Touring the Civil Rights Trail" by Candace Jackson -- describes various sites that are now tourist attractions. According to the article, hanging at the entrance to the sanctuary of the black church in Montgomery where Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached is a poster of Barack and Michelle Obama with the words "A New Era."

I believe that the story of four women in 1970 has a lot to say to those of us in 2009 who live in this supposed new era. There are things we take for granted without realizing how few the years have been since those things were not taken for granted.

And here's a children's story that takes place the day after Barack Obama wins the Presidential election and continues the saga of Wendy Johnson, the African-American officer's wife in MRS. LIEUTENANT.___

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Deployments play havoc with a military family's yearly celebrations, whether these are national holidays or individual birthdays. But especially because a military family moves so much, it's important to establish family traditions that can be carried on even if a parent is currently on deployment.

On March 4th military spouse and book author Jacey Eckhart was the guest on the BlogTalkRadio show YourMilitaryLife.com that Nancy Brown and I co-host. Jacey was with us to discuss her book "The Homefront Club: The Hardheaded Woman’s Guide to Raising a Military Family."

Jacey had such good advice for military families about creating traditions -- and she was such a fun person to interview -- that I want to share that BlogTalkRadio show with you. Listen now to Jacey Eckhart's excellent advice for military families. ____

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

The March 4th Wall Street Journal front-page article "U.S. Strategy in Afghan War Hinges on Far-Flung Outposts" by Yochi J. Dreazen goes into extensive detail about setting up remote outposts in order to fight insurgents and build relationships with local villagers.

The question is whether this strategy, which is credited with working in Iraq, can work in Afghanistan? Or, as the article says, "Will these soldiers and Marines merely be easy targets?"

David Kilcullen, a counterinsurgency expert who has long advised Gen. Petraeus on Iraq and Afghanistan, supported the outpost strategy in Iraq. But he says the U.S. is making a mistake by deploying so many troops to remote bases in Afghanistan.

Mr. Kilcullen, a retired Australian military officer, notes that 80% of the population of southern Afghanistan lives in two cities, Kandahar and Lashkar Gah. The U.S. doesn't have many troops in either one of them.

"The population in major towns and villages is vulnerable because we are off elsewhere chasing the enemy," he said.

On February 10th this blog had a guest post from Andrew Lubin on "Falling Afghan Support for U.S. Forces". How does the information in this guest post impact the probability of the success of the outpost strategy?

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Those of you who have read my novel MRS. LIEUTENANT know that there are flashbacks to Sharon Gold's undergrad days at Michigan State University in the late '60s. And there are also mentions that at college Sharon was a member of the Jewish sorority Alpha Epsilon Phi (AEPhi).

The newest issue of the AEPhi national magazine Columns (Winter 2009) has a cover story that includes a photo of me. And the cover story section about me talks about my days at MSU. While I'm not the Sharon Gold character, she does share several of my experiences. You can read the section about me Dreams Do Come True.__

Monday, March 2, 2009

I was so touched by the email that I got from high school student Shira Telushkin about wanting to participate with Jews in uniform for the Jewish holiday of Shavuot that I published Shira's email on the blog at OperationSupportJewsintheMilitary.com.

It's worth taking the time to read Shira's guest post to see what high school students can offer to do if motivated to support military personnel.

Teaching about the U.S. military and its branches today be part of 5th or 6th grade required curriculum throughout the U.S. -- just as learning U.S. history is a required school subject at some point in a student's school career.

Imagine if this proposal had been in effect when Shira Telushkin was in 5th or 6th grade so that she wouldn't have to write now "none of us has ever had serious exposure to the U.S. Army."

What would it take for my proposal to get serious consideration in the halls of national educational policy?